New COVID-19 testing site opens at Cal State LA

A new COVID-19 walk-up testing site opened Friday at the California State University, Los Angeles campus as part of a statewide effort to add more than 80 community testing sites focused on California’s underserved communities.

“Many of our hardest working families are either uninsured or underinsured and don’t normally seek access to health care which is why increasing access to COVID-19 testing sites remains one of my top priorities,” said Supervisor Hilda Solís, who attended the site’s opening ceremony, in a released statement.

The indoor, no-cost site, will be able to perform up to 132 tests daily. It will be open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday at the university’s Rongxiang Xu Bioscience Innovation Center. Testing is by appointment only.

Unlike at drive-up sites, visitors to the Cal State LA testing site will walk inside the building to receive the test. Parking is now permitted on the west side of Paseo Rancho Castilla for testing site visitors only.

The test is a self-administered oral swab, meaning clients must swab their own mouth, or throat, by following the instructions provided to them on-site. The testing process takes between 5 and 10 minutes to complete.

Health officials say the site will keep surrounding communities healthy and will help slow the spread of COVID-19 by identifying individuals who need to isolate or receive medical care.

The Cal State site is one of eight the County of Los Angeles is opening as part of the statewide effort. Besides the one opened Friday in the northeastern section of Los Angeles, sites opened this week in the cities of Pasadena, Long Beach, Santa Monica and Hawthorne.

Three additional sites will open Monday in South El Monte, Torrance and the Crenshaw neighborhood of South Los Angeles.

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These eight sites are part of the 80 testing sites statewide powered through a partnership with OptumServe, the federal government health services business of Optum.

Anyone can sign up for a test regardless of insurance or immigration status but, as with all LA County testing sites, priority will be given to those who are symptomatic as well as those who are asymptomatic and in institutional settings, over the age of 65, have a chronic medical condition, or are an essential worker.

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Boyle Heights Beat is a bilingual community newspaper produced by its youth "por y para la comunidad". The newspaper and its sister website serve an immigrant neighborhood in East Los Angeles of just under 100,000. Read more about our team